Lib at Large: Tim Flannery - devoted to the Giants, Grateful Dead

THE DAY AFTER Wednesday's parade and celebration for the world champion San Francisco Giants, Tim Flannery, the team's guitar-playing, singer-songwriter third base coach, was driving to his off season home near Santa Barbara, trying to make sense of the magical run that ended in a sweep of the mighty Detroit Tigers.

"I'm just trying to process everything now," he told me by cell phone from his car. "It still hasn't sunk in. Twenty-three days ago we were down three games to the Reds. It all happened so quick. It's blowing my mind."

Just as he is beloved by Giants fans for his windmill arm motion and foul line sprints as he waves runners in from third, Flannery has been embraced by Bob Weir, Phil Lesh and the rest of Marin's Grateful Dead family for his free-wheeling style on the field and his devotion to playing music with his band, the Lunatic Fringe.

"I've found a place now where I can be who I am," he said. "San Francisco doesn't force me to make a choice between baseball or music. That would be like having to decide between water or air."

The 55-year-old lifelong baseball man is as surprised as anyone about how quickly he's become a part of the local music scene. Two spring trainings ago, out of the blue, Weir contacted him by email, inviting him to check out his uber high-tech TRI Studios, the San Rafael recording and Webcasting facility Weir's dubbed "the ultimate playpen for musicians."

"I'd heard that Phil Lesh's son loved my music and had a couple of my records," Flannery said. "When Bobby (Weir) said he'd love to show me his studio and asked if I'd like to come out and hang out, my wife and I drove out there on a day off. I said, 'Honey I don't know why we're going out there, but I'm just going to enjoy myself.' I played some songs for him, we spent some time together and we just hit it off."

The next thing he knew, Weir and Lesh were inviting him to sing the high harmony part when they performed the National Anthem on Grateful Dead Tribute Night at AT&T Park.

"In my 33 years in professional baseball, I'd never sung the National Anthem," Flannery said. "But when that opportunity came up I text messaged (general manager) Brian Sabean, my boss, and said, 'The boys asked me to sing high harmony, and I'd like to try it with them. Are you cool with this?'"

Sabean was more than cool with it, especially after Flannery and company hit the hard-to-sing song out of the park. The following November, Flannery was joined by Weir on stage at the Uptown Theatre in Napa for the second sold-out benefit concert Flannery had organized for Bryan Stow, the Giants fan severely injured in an attack at Dodgers Stadium.

They did "Friend of the Devil" and several other Grateful Dead songs that were recorded for a benefit DVD available through BamMagazine.com and on Flannery's Web site, www.timflannery.com.

"We all enjoyed playing with him so much," Flannery recalled. "We had a great time together."

In August, in celebration of Jerry Garcia's 70th birthday, Flannery sang the Anthem again, this time with Weir and Jackie Greene. And he rejoined Weir and Lesh for the Anthem before game two of the National League Championship series against the St. Louis Cardinals.

"To be able to do sing the National Anthem with those guys and then go and coach third during the playoffs is unbelievable," he chuckled. "If I go into a bar and the bartender asks, 'What did you do today?' And I say, 'I sang high harmony on the National Anthem with the Grateful Dead and then coached third base for the Giants,' he'd say, 'Yeah, and you're an astronaut, too.' Nobody would believe me."

Before he became a coach, Flannery spent 10 years as an infielder for the San Diego Padres. Although he was never a star player, he was such a fan favorite that when he came to bat in his final game before retiring, the sell-out crowd gave him a standing ovation that lasted so long the umpire had to stop the game.

And all the while he was playing ball, he spent off-seasons and any spare time on the road writing songs, recording 11 albums and singing and playing guitar with his band. His neighbor, Jackson Browne, sang on one of his records. So did Bruce Hornsby. Over the years, he opened a couple of times for Jimmy Buffett and sat in with Hot Buttered Rum.

"I've found a niche to stay in baseball and to stay in music," he said. "I'm a musician. It's in my blood. It's in my DNA."

Growing up in Southern California with a father who was, in his words, a "hillbilly minister" (from Appalachia, Flannery was exposed to country music and family harmony groups like the Louvin Brothers and the Everly Brothers.

"Then I heard Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers and that wiped me out forever," he said.

Of Irish descent, he comes from such a rich musical stock that he isn't even the first musician-slash-major league ballplayer in his family. His uncle, Hal Smith, was a guitar-playing catcher who won a World Series with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1960.

"I have an old picture of him playing guitar with (pitcher) Harvey Haddix," Flannery recalled with a laugh. "When Harvey Haddix got hammered one night, giving up eight or nine runs in the first inning, my uncle wrote a song for Harvey that goes, 'Oh, how they hit me tonight/My curve ball wasn't breaking/My fastball they were taking/Oh how they hit me tonight.'"

In 2002, when he was with the Padres, Flannery wrote "The Baseball Song," a controversial tune and video that took shots at the steroid era that was soiling the game's integrity. The Padres didn't look so kindly at Flannery moonlighting as a musician, and the song may have been a tipping point. After decades with the organization, the team fired him.

"I'm not going to say that was the reason I got fired, but it definitely didn't help," he said.

But it was music, playing at festivals and clubs and concert halls during the eight months he was out of work, that helped him keep body and soul together.

And it's been music that has endeared him to baseball and music fans in the Bay Area. He and his band play Nov. 16 at the Connecticut Yankee, a sports pub in San Francisco. And he has a date to play his first Marin show on Jan. 25 at Sweetwater Music Hall in Mill Valley.

His latest album, "The Restless Kind," is dedicated to the 2010 Giants world championship team. He's now working on a new song, "Backs Against the Wall," about the 2012 champions.

"My songs are about baseball, but they're not about bats and balls," he said. "They come from being on the road for 30-something years and all the characters you meet along the way. It's all about honoring the game and honoring the music. To be able to play music and feel the love of the people who love the music is very humbling thing to be a part of."